KUNDUZ, Afghanistan -- Rahimullah served in the Afghan army for two years, deployed to the bloody front lines of the southern province of Helmand. When he quit, it was not because of the combat: It was when the Taliban went after his family back home, telling them that if he didn't leave the army there would be a fine of one Kalashnikov rifle, seven cartridge magazines and $1,000 -- or worse.
"My father called me to say the Taliban are demanding this," said Rahimullah, 30, who now lives back in the eastern province of Kunar with his family. "I left the army, and some other of my friends left, too. We didn't have the money to pay them. We had joined the army from poverty."
Such demands are another way the Taliban have been able to keep pressure on the Afghan army, which was already struggling with record casualties and attrition. As the insurgents have made inroads in eastern and northern Afghanistan -- long the most important recruiting grounds for the army -- they are directly threatening the military's ability to replenish its dwindling ranks.
Interviews with residents and army recruitment officers across several provinces suggest the Taliban pressure is taking a serious toll, with officials in some provinces reporting recruitment down by as much as 50 percent. Exact data on Afghan forces have been classified by both the Afghan government and the United States, which largely bankrolls the security forces.
Senior officials in Kabul, the capital, admitted to a partial drop in recruitment this year, but said they were hoping to intensify efforts and make up the loss by the end of the year. Gen. Mohammed Ibrahim, commander of the Afghan army's national recruitment center, said the force had recruited 37,000 men last year, and 42,000 in 2015.
"In the first six months of this year, we recruited 13,000 personnel, but we are planning to recruit 25,000 in the second six months," he said. "We do face challenges in recruiting enough personnel, I cannot hide that."
The general attributed the recruitment woes as much to the increasing violence as to a decrease in funding for outreach efforts, such as television advertisements.
"We used to gather about 350 or 400 people a month, now it's about 150 a month," said Abdul Qadeer, head of army recruitment in Kunduz province, where the Taliban have twice seized the center of the provincial capital in recent years. "All the districts outside the city are under enemy influence, and they threaten the youth into not joining the army."
Taliban pressure includes fines on families of soldiers, physical punishment of soldiers who return home, and even confiscation of land and homes.
"The Taliban tell the father of an army soldier to either call back your son, or give us a Kalashnikov rifle and 400,000 afghanis," said Mujtaba Khan, head of army recruitment in Badakhshan province, referring to a fine of about $6,000. "And when the son returns, he is beaten and locked up."
Other officials said that the rising number of army casualties in gruesome, high-profile attacks over the past year was also affecting recruitment.
In one recent massacre in Kandahar province, the Taliban wiped out nearly an entire army unit of 60 men. In April, insurgents drove into the army's headquarters in the northern province of Balkh and killed at least 140 soldiers in a rampage that lasted several hours. In a March attack claimed by the Islamic State, militants barged into the military's main hospital in Kabul, slaughtering dozens of soldiers who were being treated there.
While the Afghan government does not publicly disclose exact casualty figures, the coffins are still coming home to villages. In private, officials say on average 20 to 30 Afghan soldiers and police officers die every day as the violence intensifies.
"Before the attack on army corps in the north and the military hospital in Kabul our numbers were higher, but now recruitment is down," said Abdul Maroof, in charge of army recruitment in Takhar province. "Compared with previous years, I would say our recruitment is at about 50 percent less."
A Section on 11/19/2017